As hardware and software designs continue to grow in complexity and make advancements at breakneck speed, the need for verification technologies that can maintain the pace has become increasingly critical. At the annual IBM Verification Seminar, held on Sunday November 21 at the IBM Haifa Labs, experts gathered to discuss the challenges facing the verification community today.

Verification professionals in recent years have responded to a variety of hardware development trends, such as the design of system-on-a-chip technology. Lectures at the seminar addressed such trends, as well as other topics such as industry standards and verification and design languages. The full-day seminar featured a wide array of speakers representing developers, researchers, and end-users. Professor Edmund Clarke of the Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science delivered the day's keynote lecture. Other presenters included Dennis Brophy, chairman of the Accellera standards organization; Dr. Ivo Bolsens, CTO and VP of R&D at Xilinx; and Dr. Orna Berry, the former Chief Scientist of Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade, from Gemini Partners.

Although most presentations discussed technical subjects, the seminar also addressed business aspects, technology management, and standardization efforts connected with verification. The audience expressed particular interest in those lectures.

Yaron Wolfsthal, manager of formal verification and testing technologies at the IBM Haifa Labs, noted that in addition to addressing current verification issues, the seminar also introduced and discussed the challenges of the future.

"While several lectures addressed verification techniques as they are currently deployed," said Wolfsthal, "others introduced discussion on topics that we are just beginning to see emerge, such as advanced verification of configurable hardware and the use of formal methods for software verification ."

An additional feature of this year's seminar was a booth that provided information of general interest about the EU PROSYD project. The IBM Haifa Labs are a key partner in the PROSYD project, which is driving a novel PSL-based methodology for chip development.